Typical pillows are mass produced and designed to try to accommodate entire populations. They are designed merely to provide a cushion for people to slightly elevate their heads and necks while they are sleeping. The pillows are more or less one size fits all, and they can't be easily adjusted to conform to the unique body contour of an individual. For this reason, several companies have developed adjustable, functional therapeutic pillows. In fact, many of these therapeutic pillows can maintain a person's neck curvature and spinal alignment during sleep by using different sizes, shapes, and densities of supporting components and materials. Not only do many of these pillows have therapeutic uses, many are also comfortable. Users can try to adjust the size or shape of these pillows by, for example, inflating them or placing some type of an insert inside them. However, many of these pillows are difficult to use, and many are not very effective. More importantly, they do not always fit a person's unique body shape.
It would be desirable to have a way to measure a person's unique body shape easily so that a pillow could correspond perfectly to such shape. The measurement device and the method of using it could be used, for example, to provide therapeutic benefits to patients. Chiropractors, physiatrists, orthopedists, and physical therapists would especially find the device and method to be very useful.